Apple and Stalking? The Privacy Outfit?
May 3, 2022
Here is a tale of unintended, though not unanticipated, consequences. Engadget tells us “Police Reports Suggest a Larger Pattern of AirTag Stalking.” A few isolated cases of bad actors using Apple AirTags to facilitate stalking or car theft have come to light since the device was released in April 2021. To learn how widespread the problem is, Motherboard requested any records mentioning the technology from dozens of police departments around the country. Writer K. Holt summarizes:
“Motherboard received 150 reports from eight police departments and found that, in 50 cases, women called the cops because they received notifications suggesting that someone was tracking them with an AirTag or they heard the device chiming. (An AirTag will chime after it has been separated from its owner for between eight and 24 hours.) Half of those women suspected the tags were planted in their car by a man they knew, such as a current or former romantic partner or their boss. The vast majority of the reports were filed by women. There was just one case in which a man made a report after suspecting that an ex was using an AirTag (which costs just $29) to stalk him. Around half of the reports mentioned AirTags in the contexts of thefts or robberies. Just one instance of AirTag-related stalking would be bad enough. Fifty reports in eight jurisdictions in eight months is a not insignificant number and there are likely other cases elsewhere that haven’t been disclosed.”
Apple was aware the product had the potential to be abused, which is why the alerts cited by victims were built into it from the start. The company has since made some tweaks to make it more obvious if its product has been slipped into one’s belongings, like chiming sooner or making those notification messages clearer. At first the notifications only worked on iOS devices, leaving Android users in the dark. An Android app has since been released, but those users must be aware of the problem, and remember to manually scan for potential AirTag-alongs, for it to be of any use. Google is reportedly working on OS-level detection, which would be some consolation.
And the bad actors? Probably beavering away.
Cynthia Murrell, May 3, 2022
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
